Swiss TV: Police say 44 injured in train collision

[flowers]

GENEVA (AP) — Swiss television, citing local police, reports that 44 people have been injured, four of them seriously, in a head-on train collision in the west of the country.

Public TV station SRF quotes Vaud canton (state) police spokesman Pierre-Olivier Gaudard as saying one person has yet to be recovered from the wreckage.

The crash happened late Monday on a regional line about 50 kilometers (31 miles) southwest of the capital, Bern.

Pictures on the website of local daily 24 Heures showed the two regional trains locked together but still on the tracks.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/police-several-injured-swiss-train-collision

 

[Rapunzel]

Seems to be a bad time to ride trains.

[mountaineer]

One driver is dead.

Train driver's body found after crash in Switzerland
By Laura Smith-Spark, CNN
July 30, 2013 -- Updated 1556 GMT (2356 HKT)

(CNN) -- The body of the driver of one of two commuter trains that collided head-on in western Switzerland has been found in his crushed cab, Swiss police said Tuesday.

Twenty-five of the passengers needed hospital treatment after the crash Monday evening, police in the Vaud canton said in a news release, one fewer than had previously been stated.

Nine others were treated on the spot for minor injuries and 11 others were unharmed, police said.

The train driver who survived, age 54, was injured and is in hospital, Swiss Federal Railways spokesman Reto Schaerli told CNN.

The collision happened just outside the village of Granges-pres-Marnand, about 8 kilometers (5 miles) south of Payerne.

Authorities are trying to determine what caused the crash.

The latest details were given in a news conference Tuesday by the Vaud police and senior Swiss railways officials.
 
At this early stage, police believe that the train driver who survived was supposed to have waited at the train station in Granges-pres-Marnand until the other train had passed, but did not, Schaerli said. It is not yet clear whether there were any technical or safety failures, he said.

Police said the surviving driver had stopped his train at the station to allow passengers to board and disembark. Moments after he set off again, the two trains slammed into each other. The driver had time to apply the emergency brake before the impact, police said.

The trains were traveling between Payerne and Lausanne, a city on the shores of Lake Geneva, when they collided. No foreigners were on the trains, according to police.

Firefighters used heavy machinery to separate the crumpled trains and access the cab where the 24-year-old driver's body was found early Tuesday, police said.

The local government sent its condolences to the driver's family.

A Swiss Federal Railways statement said "this is a very sad day and we regret the loss of one of our colleagues as well as those who were injured."

The line between Lausanne and Payerne will remain closed Tuesday, police said.

This and the Spanish crash are unnerving to any of us who have traveled by train in Europe! I've ridden trains along Lake Geneva, to and from Lausanne.

[Fishrrman]

Looks like the engineman on one of the trains either forgot his last signal, or forgot about what was on his paperwork. It happens.

Unfortunately, it was the _other_ engine guy who paid with his life.

Actually, my understanding is that the Swiss take their railroading quite seriously.

But regardless of the best efforts, things go wrong. One can follow procedures, and _still_ have things go badly awry -- look at the one-man oil train runaway up in Canada not long ago.

Or consider the high-speed wreck in Spain. This wasn't some rookie at the controls -- it was an experienced operator who -- in the course of [what was probably] an official conversation with the dispatcher/controller -- lost his sense of place, and forgot to brake for the curve he was approaching. Too late, when he realized what he had missed.